1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a complex amino acid seasoning composition and its preparation method, in particular, to a complex amino acid seasoning composition comprising L-glutamic acid and L-lysine having a taste enhancing potential to significantly enhance saltiness and umami, and its preparation method.
2. Description of the Related Art
L-Lysine is an essential amino acid in human that is likely to be deficient in oriental people of which main dish is cereal foods. It plays a role as a protein precursor for skeletal muscle. In addition, it has been reported to be involved in a variety of physiological functions including biosynthesis of carnitine facilitating fatty acid metabolism, promotion of calcium absorption for children's growth and development, and immune enhancing effects as well as enhancement of gastrointestinal system upon feeding with glutamic acid and/or arginine.
L-Glutamic acid is one of acidic amino acids found plentifully in animal proteins such as beef meats, chicken meats and poke meats, plant proteins such as tomato, beans, mushrooms and seaweeds, and breast milk. L-Glutamic acid plays a critical role in amino acid metabolism. Furthermore, it serves as a main precursor for glutamine capable of detoxification of ammonia. L-Glutamic acid is also highlighted as neurotransmitters involved in brain functions such as cognitive and memory potentials. L-Glutamic acid is a precursor for arginine, proline and glutathione, which contributes to not only integrity of mucous membrane but also promotion of intestinal tract development for nutrition absorption. In addition to this, L-Glutamic acid has been reported as a component of folic acid and a precursor for glutathione as antioxidants.
A seasoning is one of the most important materials in the food industry field. Monosodium glutamate (MSG) as a representative of seasonings has been widely used into various food products. Furthermore, other seasonings including yeast extract, hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP) and soy source are also frequently used. However, the conventional seasonings prepared by hydrolysis of protein sources have serious shortcomings such as amino acid-derived offensive odor, bitterness by non-hydrolyzed peptides and higher market price. In this regard, the conventional seasonings have limitations in a wider application to the food industry field.
In recent years, a multitude of intensive reaches have been made to develop novel seasoning materials with lower sodium content and higher nutritional factors that are helpful in prevention of metabolic syndromes as lifestyle diseases and healthy life.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,563,359 (1986) discloses seasoning compositions comprising a glutamate salt mixture for increasing umami taste and decreasing a sodium content, wherein potassium, ammonium and calcium ions as an inorganic couterion are mixed with glutamic acid. However, the seasoning compositions have shortcomings such as decrease in umami taste, inhomogeneous offensive odor affected by types of inorganic ions and decrease in safety and solubility. Therefore, it would be appreciated that the seasoning composition is not used as a general seasoning material as MSG, since there are limitations in their preparation and application to food products.
Japanese Pat. No. 18486 (1961) by Kyowa Corp. suggests technologies with formation of L-glutamic acid•L-lysine crystal salts. However, L-glutamic acid and L-lysine crystal are not homogeneously mixed because they show different solubility to crystallization solvents such as methyl alcohol and ethyl alcohol, which is very likely to induce problems in sensory properties such as bitterness, sourness and amino acid-derived offensive odor (see U.S. Pat. No. 4,563,359).
Furthermore, there are some prior patent publications on seasoning materials for improving tastes (umami and saltiness), nutrition and cost-effectiveness, including U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 20110064861 (2011) for glutamic acid-containing amino acid compositions and Korean Pat. No. 0130012 (2009) for branched chain amino acid (BCAA)-containing compositions.
Throughout this application, various patents and publications are referenced and citations are provided in parentheses. The disclosure of these patents and publications in their entities are hereby incorporated by references into this application in order to more fully describe this invention and the state of the art to which this invention pertains.